


cold hands; yours, too

by Jay815



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay815/pseuds/Jay815
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My no-longer-Secret-Santa gift for blackeyedmarti, to the prompt: 'It's two am, we're standing outside of our apartment building bc someone pulled the fire alarm, and you look cold and unprepared, do you want to share my blanket?' au</p><p>Featuring trashbaby!Carmilla Karnstein and an irate Laura Hollis</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold hands; yours, too

Groaning softly, Laura Hollis pulls her blanket tighter around her, nudging her cold nose deeper into her cocoon of warmth, sinking deeper into her bed, mentally cursing the  _curmudgeonly wombats invading Europe’s potato farms_ that is the wailing of her apartment building’s fire alar-

_Fire alarm?_

Blearily, Laura opens her eyes and groans again, tempted to ignore the persistent noise. She thinks about how cold winter this year has been, thinks about her early work shift, thinks about false alarms and lousy college kid cooks – _at least if the building burns I’ll be warm_ – but, sighing, sits up and quickly slips on her fuzzy bedroom slippers over cold feet. For a solitary second, Laura wonders what people might think about the bunny ears flopping off them, but then realises that she can hear what are probably fire trucks in the distance and, _crap_.

Holding her blanket around her like a cape, Laura grabs her phone off her bedside table – the numbers _3:57_ stare back at her – and dashes to her front door, snatching her keys off the kitchen table as she opens the door to the outside hallway.

A few people are beginning to emerge from behind doors, hair tousled, in various states of (un)dress. Most have blankets in their hands or around their shoulders as they poke their heads out.

Laura sniffs the air and shakes her head, but starts towards the stairwell anyway. Someone – slim, small, rumpled black hair, clad in a sleeveless black muscle tee and short running shorts – and nothing else – yawns, and pulls the heavy stairwell door open. She makes eye contact with Laura as she approaches, and Laura feels a jolt at her dark eyes, her sleep-softened lips. Cold, sleepy and wishing for pyjama pockets, Laura still manages to think – _luminescent_ and _elfin_ – before the other woman disappears down the stairs.

She doesn’t hold the door open for Laura.

**.**

The building’s residents are milling around the outside of the building, huddled around the wide concrete courtyard, most standing alone, only a few congregating in shared neighbourly irritation.

The building manager stands away from the crowd, speaking rapidly into her phone, curly red hair bouncing as she nods or shakes her head furiously. She’s standing next to another redhead with shorn hair who keeps trying to wrap a fuzzy blanket around her, but she’s gesticulating too much for the endeavour to be any kind of success.

Laura pulls herself tighter into her cocoon, glancing up at the building in annoyance. The courtyard was shrouded in shadow, not lit up by any kind of fire bursting out from any windows of the apartment block. The only wisps of anything resembling smoke was the mist appearing in front of Laura’s face every time she exhaled.

She sighs. 

Someone standing behind the gigantic plantscape at the centre of the courtyard – an eyesore, really – stifles a high-pitched, squeaky sneeze.

And then does it again four times in quick-succession, followed by a sniffle and a quiet, but clearly discernible, biting, “ _Fuck_.”

Laura smiles wryly, amused that at least someone else felt as miserable as she did, and curiously peaks around the plant structures – honestly, possibly the ugliest thing she’d ever seen; was the hedge _supposed_ to look like a beanstalk covered in giant turds? – and sees the woman from her floor who hadn’t held the stairwell door open for her.

She’s sitting on the concrete edge of the hedge, arms clasped tightly around her knees, bare feet rapidly bouncing up and down in an attempt to keep warm.

“Fuckity shitfuck fuck,” Laura hears. Or she would, if the speaker wasn’t chattering so hard her curses sounded more like, “Ffffuckitysh-sh-sh-shit-t f-f-fuck.”

Laura shakes her head. It was the middle of one of the worst winters they’d ever seen. Who wore _that_ to bed, much less evacuated without at least taking a jacket or a blanket with them?

She stamps at the floor, letting out a growl of exasperation and another punctuated, “F-fuck.”

Laura rolls her eyes and sighs again. “Would you like to share my blanket?”

Messy hair jerks around, falling to frame a delicately angular face lit by streaks of moonlig – Laura thinks, _ohmygodshitdamnfuCK_ – as the other woman sharply turns her head, and dark eyes glare at Laura as her hands clench even tighter around herself. “W-w-what?”

“You look cold.”

“N-no sh-sh-sh-sHIT, Sh-sh-Sherlock-ck.”

Laura makes a face, but walks over and holds her blanket open slightly. “Do you want to share my blanket?”

A wry smile, or possibly a grimace, crosses the other woman’s face, but she jerks her head hard, just once.

Laura throws half of her blanket around the other woman, enveloping her in the heavy, dark blue wool quilt. Pulling her knees to her chest, Laura closes the edges around them both, trying to let as little warmth escape as possible.

“I’m Laura.”

“C-c-carmill-lla.”

They sit there for a few moments, huddled together under Laura’s blanket, the sound of their building manager babbling over the phone getting drowned out by the sound of approaching fire truck sirens.

“D-d-dyou m-mindifi-”

Laura shakes her head slightly, and lets Carmilla lean into her, wraps her own arms around chilly skin, shivering slightly at the touch. “You’re freezing,” Laura notes worriedly, rubbing her hands briskly over Carmilla’s cold arms. “Sorry, you don’t mind? It’s just that you feel really, really cold.”

Laura’s not entirely sure if Carmilla’s head movement is a headshake or a spasm from the cold, but she doesn’t pull away, so Laura keeps rubbing at the cold skin as she tucks Carmilla’s head against her shoulder.

“You should really sleep in warmer clothes,” Laura scolds.

A puff of almost-warm air against her neck and an almost imperceptible press of cold skin against her flannel pyjamas are the only responses she receives.

Laura rolls her eyes again, and by the time the fire chief and building manager have completed their safety checks – “False alarm, folks!” a cheerful, lithe redhead announces, amidst loud grumblings from the gathered residents – she and Carmilla have become so entwined in their huddle under their tepee-style draped blanket that it takes them a awkward moment to untangle themselves.

“Sorry, sorry!” Laura blushes when she roughly brushes against – well, it was clear that Carmilla also didn’t believe in wearing bras to bed. 

Her only response is an eye-roll as Carmilla lets Laura wrap the blanket tightly around her.

“You need it a little more than I do,” Laura explains. Carmilla doesn’t contradict her, only silently trailing behind Laura as they follow the other residents back into the lobby.

“You should take a hot shower before you get back into bed, and maybe also have some food and a warm drink,” Laura says as they get out of the lift. 

“Thanks,” Carmilla mumbles as she slips back through her unlocked apartment door, still wrapped tightly in Laura’s blanket. There’s the distinctive _thuk_ of a lock.

Laura stands outside for a moment, blinking. _Unbelievable_.

**.**

“Hold the doors!” Laura stumbles up the stairs towards the lift, struggling with her groceries as she watches the doors start to close and then re-open.

“Thanks,” she smiles, then the smile falls when she realises that the person inside the lift is _Carmilla_. She’s wearing a knee-length woollen sweater over black leggings and scuffed black boots, _Melody Dean_ blasting out of her earphones. She barely glances at Laura before she punches the number 7 button and stares impassively at the closing doors.

Laura waits. And waits. The doors _ding_ and open. Carmilla steps out immediately, not looking back.

Laura calls out her name from behind her, but Carmilla’s already halfway into her front door, which slams shut heavily behind her.

Laura lets out a long breath.

She spends the rest of her evening fuming, swirling her penne furiously around the pot, slamming her cupboards a little too hard and mixing the pesto in the bowl a bit too viciously. She manages to finish dinner without breaking anything (the broccolini she stabbed at would protest, if she hadn’t immediately chomped down on it with clenched teeth).

Laura stalks out of her apartment and knocks on Carmilla’s door. Hard and repeatedly.

When she receives no response, she knocks again, and then frowns, realising that she can dimly hear what sounds like…French? Pressing her ear against the door, Laura hears _si seulement la vie était comme dans les films, mais c'est pas_.

The Neighbourhood.

Laura sighs.

**.**

Shrugging off her coat, Laura drops her drawstring duffle bag, keys and phone, still plugged into her earphones, into one messy pile on the floor as her door falls shut behind her. Groaning tiredly, she limps over to her plush felt couch and sinks into it, eyes closed.

She’s just about to fall asleep in a position that will leave her spine feeling like brittle bicycle clips when she wakes up at the loud, insistent knock at her front door. 

Laura lets out a whine of annoyance and flings a forearm over her eyes.

The person outside knocks again, louder.

Breathing deeply to settle her mild heart palpitations from being startled back into consciousness, Laura steps over the pileup in front of her door and pulls it open.

Carmilla, dressed in a pine-coloured bomber jacket over a sheer top, ripped jeans and boots (black, black, and black), holds up Laura’s blanket and thrusts it at her. “I forgot I had it.”

Laura accepts the proffered blanket, catching a whiff of something smoky as she hugs it in her arms.

“Thanks.” 

Carmilla nods and turns around, so Laura moves her foot away from where it’s acting as a doorstop, but then there’s a soft _thump_ and when she turns back, her door swings back open, and Carmilla’s looking at her, forehead slightly creased, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

Laura waits.

“What are you having for dinner tonight?”

Laura cocks her head. “Leftovers, why? Did you want some?”

The blank look on Carmilla’s face is her only answer.

“I shared my blanket with you, so if you want food too, that’s not a huge stretch.”

Carmilla laughs disbelievingly, shaking her head slightly. Lips curl up in a small smile – Laura thinks, _candescent_ , and, _fuck_ – as Carmilla leans against Laura’s doorframe.

“I meant, would you like to have dinner with me?”

Laura things, _fuck yes_ , and she says, “Sure.”

Carmilla holds the door open as Laura gathers up her pile of abandoned belongings and pulls her coat on.

**.**

"So why were you wearing so little that night?"

"I sleep naked," Carmilla deadpans, and Laura blinks rapidly.

"Also, that was the only thing next to my bed when I woke up, and I couldn't be bothered looking for anything else."

 **.**  

Her blanket smells like Carmilla – gently smoky, from her roll-ups (“I’m trying to quit before I fall asleep and wake up aflame. I haven’t been able to.”), a brief whiff of cherry blossoms, from her perfume, and something heady that Laura can’t identify, and doesn’t want to.

The smell on her blanket doesn’t ever really fade, and Carmilla always holds the door open for her when they’re out together. 

**.**


End file.
